If you want to argue that JPEGs are the equal of, or superior to, RAW files for your purposes, by all means, do so.

Are you utterly and completely incapable of reading what the counterpart actually is saying? Seriously John... in what bizarro word what I said could be interpreted that way? It's like your English and my English are very different Englishes. Oh, never mind. Go on about everything under the sun totally ignoring what is actually being said.

It occurred to me that the above is precisely what you have been doing.

If not this, then what, exactly, have you been saying?

I can't make it any more clear to you than this, and I copied it from the post I already made, so it's going to be your second run at trying to decipher this:

"To make it simple for you:

Your statement that OoC JPEG cannot be altered in PP for anything but small sized prints is simply incorrect. Period. It can, and regularly is."

If this is still so hard to understand, there is not much I can do for you.

You still appear to fail to understand that a JPEG is like a Hollywood set, there is nowhere to extend the living room, because it is just a facade.

You still appear to fail to understand that JPEG has a lot more room for PP than you realize, and such PP is routinely done by professional retouchers per specific requests of the clients, producing professional results for printing in sizes significantly exceeding what you mention.

Every book I have ever read on this subject states that any massive (heroic?) editing of a JPEG file will lead to easily perceived image degradation. I own some dozen or so such books, and they all say the same. Every Internet site that I have visited says the same. My own experience way back taught me in double-quick time that this was the case.

Then you haven't read those few books that explain how to do it right. I'd cite them for you but you don't appear to be interested in anything that goes beyond your "double-click time" experience.

I have used Genuine Fractals to up-rezz images, and it is possibly better than the up-sizing algorithms in CS. By CS2, Adobe had pulled ahead, and is now WAY ahead ....

Ever tried up-rezzing a JPEG? I have. Didn't even bother to waste the paper/ink to print a test proof ...

This part has zero to do with topic at hand. Any chance you stay on it?

Anyway, your standards are obviously suitable for you, otherwise you would seek to improve your workflow, rather than fighting so vehemently against it ...

Well, those re standards of professional retouching images for sizes starting with poster size. You imply you could offer me a better workflow - while stating multiple times that your own PP is limited to a little cropping and slight adjusting? Heh. Now... vehemently fighting against something? I merely corrected your erroneous statement, and you went ballistic. Is it merely a fact that someone disagrees with you that triggers these tirades?

My own standards are suitable for me. If there is no degradation in print at A2 size when viewed with a magnifying glass, that's good enough for me. I can (usually) achieve that easily from my E-1/510/30 RAWs. I can never achieve it from a LSF/SHQ JPEG from any of them. Possibly a high quality magazine double spread (double quarto), but not larger than this, and specially not for a fine art print, even at that size ... .

As I said above - because you don't know how to it, not because it can't be done. But you are so rigid in your convictions that you'll never learn.

The attack on me that you seem to be pursuing so vigorously appears to be ideologically based in some way, rather than addressing the facts in answer to the OP's question ...

Attack?? On you?? Paranoid much? Let's try again: I merely corrected erroneous statement. Or in your mind the very assumption that you might be mistaken is an attack on you?

IF you do understand anything that I have tried to say in this thread,

John, John...

please address the substance of what I have written, rather than cherry-picking a specific phrase, taken out of the context of the post it was made in, and attacking that.

John... I haven't challenged what I didn't find erroneous. It's a specific phrase that was incorrect, thus I addressed it specifically - notice, addressed, not attacked. It's like the world is endless war for you, and any conversation where you encounter different opinion, any kind of disagreement or knowledge/experience contradicting yours is a fight. It's not John - it's learning opportunity.

A photographer friend rang me before dinner and said that he had read every post in this thread, and informed me in the strongest possible terms to stop wasting my time - among other things ...

Oh, that sure settles it. How can I be so silly to contradict your "photographer friend..." Wait, phone rings, I'll go listen to what my photographer friend thinks...